NEW VIDEO: SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS - 'HALF ASLEEP'

February 12, 2009

“The first thing that popped into our heads was the word ‘lush’,” says director Toby Halbrooks of brainstorming for the video for School of Seven Bells’ “Half Asleep.” Halbrooks’ video for “Half Asleep” (from the trio’s full-length debut, Alpinisms, now available on 180-gram vinyl) strikes an appropriately somnambulant tone, switching back and forth between shots of twin vocalists Alejandra and Claudia Deheza – occasionally causing the viewer to question whether they are, in fact, the same person – as the sisters take a rain-flecked car ride through their native New York. Staring out the window, the Dehezas are obscured by purple lens flares and orange chrysanthymum blooms, shaken by jittery camera tricks, and visited by translucent green ghosts. No conflict, no resolution – just a moment of strange beauty hanging in suspended animation.